UX Quotes

Technology Quotes

“Most digital products today emerge from the development process like a monster emerging from a bubbling tank. Developers, instead of planning and executing with their users in mind, end up creating technological solutions over which they ultimately have little control. Like mad scientists, they fail because they have not imbued their creations with humanity.” – Alan Cooper (source)

“Ironically, the thing that will likely make the least improvement in the ease of use of software-based products is new technology. There is little difference technically between a complicated, confusing program and a simple, fun, and powerful product.” – Alan Cooper (source)

“Forget about the killer feature. Welcome to the age of the killer user experience. When technology achieves something desirable without being in your face, when it knows how to integrate itself into your wishes and desires without distracting from them, that’s when technology lives up to its potential.” – Andreas Pfeiffer (source)

“Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era – it’s a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good.” – Clement Mok (source)

“Technology creates the context for persuasion, but content persuades. Technology helps get content to the right people at the right time. The content still has to influence. Delivering the wrong content at the right time is as bad as delivering the right content at the wrong time.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“I think that we, as designers, have to be completely open to the changes that technology is making in our discipline… as designers we need to be first in line to try the new technologies so that we can use the new technologies more to our advantage than to our detriment.” – Debbie Millman (source)

“Too many companies believe that all they must do is provide a ‘neat’ technology or some ‘cool’ product or, sometimes, just good, solid engineering. Nope. All of those are desirable (and solid engineering is a must), but there is much more to a successful product than that: understanding how the product is to be used, design, engineering, positioning, marketing, branding–all matter. It requires designing the Total User Experience.” – Don Norman (source)

“As web designers, we need to be very careful about the lure of complexity. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that if it’s hard to design, it must be good; that if it’s using the latest technology, it must be good; that if all our friends think it’s really cool, it must be good.” – Gerry McGovern (source)

“How do we professionally manage content? We don’t. We shouldn’t manage content in the same way that we shouldn’t manage technology. Content and technology are merely a means to an end. What is the end? The end is the task the customer wishes to complete. That is what we should manage.” – Gerry McGovern (source)

“The Web 2.0 architecture still needs much work… As Spiderman’s Uncle Ben pointed out, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Just because we can do all these [Web 2.0] things doesn’t mean we should do them… [It is easy to] imagine designers going wild with the capabilities of this new technology and not using the restraint necessary to ensure they produce an optimal experience.” – Jared Spool (source)

“Technological advances have always been driven more by a mind-set of ‘I can’ than ‘I should’… Technologists love to cram maximum functionality into their products. That’s ‘I can’ thinking, which is driven by peer competition and market forces… But this approach ignores the far more important question of how the consumer will actually use the device… focus on what we should be doing, not just what we can.” – John Maeda (source)

“What’s next for technology and design? A lot less thinking about technology for technology’s sake, and a lot more thinking about design. Art humanizes technology and makes it understandable. Design is needed to make sense of information overload. It is why art and design will rise in importance during this century as we try to make sense of all the possibilities that digital technology now affords.” – John Maeda (source)

“As we explore new human interface devices and incorporate new interactions into our designs, we have the opportunity to create deep connections between users and their technology.” – Jonathan Follett (source)

“When software is hard to use, don’t make excuses for it. Improve it. When a user makes a mistake, don’t blame the user. Ask how the software misled them. Then fix it. The user’s time is more valuable than ours. Respect it. Good UI design is humble.” – Jono DiCarlo (source)

“When we blame the user, we teach them that technology is perfect and that the errors are their own. Because technology is hard to use, we are teaching a generation to be afraid of technology. We are teaching a generation to believe in their own stupidity… It’s not the user’s fault.” – Jono DiCarlo (source)

“People should never feel like a failure when using technology. Like the customer, the user is always right. If software crashes, it is the software designer’s fault. If someone can’t find something on a web site, it is the web designer’s fault… The big difference between good and bad designers is how they handle people struggling with their design. Technology serves humans. Humans do not serve technology.” – Joshua Porter (source)

“We don’t want to figure out what all those buttons do or why they are set up the way they are. We just want to get on with our lives and do our jobs well. When we make use of technology, we want to focus on achieving our goals, not on deciphering the technology. The design should be in the background of our attention.” – Kim Vicente (source)

“UX is about technology that fulfils more than just instrumental needs in a way that acknowledges its use as a subjective, situated, complex and dynamic encounter. UX is a consequence of a user’s internal state, the characteristics of the designed system and the context within which the interaction occurs.” – Marc Hassenzahl (source)

“People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.” – Paola Antonelli (source)

“Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life. They’re able to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and society and convert those changes into objects and ideas that people can understand.” – Paola Antonelli (source)

“We all like to think of ourselves as user centric designers, but exactly how much effort do you put into knowing your users before beginning the design process? Take the time to really understand them the best you can… Understanding your users not only improves the quality of your work, but also helps move the discussion away from the personal preferences of the client, to the people who’s opinion really matters.” – Paul Boag (source)

“Now more than ever in increasingly complex, transient times, the need for holistic experiences is vital… To approach such design as a ‘whole’ â€” we need to understand the varying concepts of time and data through the perspectives of cohabitants, technology and business interests alike… We must constantly re-think our process to become melting pots of ideas, perspectives and skills that not only drill deep, but also wide.” – Rahul Sen (source)

“In the absence of detailed information, we all work from assumptions about who the user is, what he or she does, and what type of system would meet his or her needs. Following these assumptions, we tend to design for ourselves, not for other people.” – Richard Rubinstein (source)

“All new technologies develop within the background of a tacit understanding of human nature and human work. The use of technology in turn leads to fundamental changes in what we do, and ultimately in turn what it is to be human. We encounter the deep questions of design when we recognize that in designing tools we are designing ways of being.” – Terry Winograd (source)

“The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect – to help people work together – and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world.” – Tim Berners-Lee (source)

“Saying that people are the focus of user experience is stating the obvious, but when we are deeply engaged in our own work as user experience designers, it can be difficult to constantly remember to keep people at the center of design. For most of us, it’s hard not to get caught up in the skills and techniques that the technologies we work with require and even harder not to want to use technology to solve problems. But as user experience designers, we need to keep our eye on people.” – Whitney Quesenbery (source)